Fractures
by a red burn
Summary: Maybe their past will make them better.


_Notes:_ This is a post Muriel's death angry sex. There's a tiny little nod to the original scripts. Props if you got it (I may write you a one shot of your choosing ;])

Unbeta-ed. Any mistakes are totally mine, sorry!

_x_

The door closes with a loud thud and she misses Hansel flinching at the sound as she makes her way to the corner of the hotel room. There's a bowl of water and clean towels on the table and she needs to wash her past away, scrub the truth from her skin, erase any trace of whom she is and who she had been.

Adrenaline is still cursing through her veins, body trembling and anger in flames she ignores the pain throbbing through her body, the cuts and wounds that will certainly heal to become a new set of scars. Muriel is dead, she reassures herself and tries to pretend the wand she brought back doesn't feel as heavy as the world she carries on her shoulders.

She's a fucking witch, clean teeth and clear skin and eyes devoid of any darkness, but she's cursed with the magic they have been trying to clear the world from for fifteen years. The witch lair under their old home, her mother's spell book, the wand that glows when she holds it, she soft whispering in her head; it makes sense, it makes the truth harder to refute. She doesn't hate reality for what it is, but for what it shaped her to be, for the lies she believed and the pain she endured.

She likes crossbows better because they're more personal, more precise, and they require a level of discipline and attention not easily found in a regular person; her focus has to be put into the task completely. Her brother prefers guns because they're easier to handle, easier to manage and he likes the result of bullet meeting flesh and the blood that spurts out. It gives him reassurance the damage has been done.

That's how they are, she thinks, hard edges against soft corners, precision against damage. There has never been a question about who's the general favorite amongst any towns they visit. Her brother gets the smiles and applauds; the attention she only gets from men who want to take off her pants rather than dwell with her brain.

Her temper is dark, stormy, and it shows when she's cross, when she has to deal with conceited prostitutes and arrogant sheriffs, but mellows and softens when her brother smooths out the corners. When she knocks the pitcher of water over her brother is immediately next to her, rubbing soft circles against her back, taking the towel from her hard closed fists and she realizes her hands are shaking.

Hansel rests his left hand against her jaw, his thumb brushing gently over the cut on her lip while he wipes the blood off her face. She closes her eyes and tries to focus on the children that were saved, on the troll she befriended, on the feel of her brother's warm hand against her skin; not on the tears filling the corner of her eyes.

"Things went better than I expected."

She doesn't laugh but a smile pulls at the corners of her lips. She's too numb and to take the joke as it is so when she opens her eyes she fails to notice the worry clouding his face. The cut along his hairline stopped bleeding a long time ago and death seems to have evaded him again, but those moments when she saw the knife break his flesh and red stain his clothes is forever imprinted in her brain.

"I was so worried about you," she says, closing a hand around the front of his jacket, fingers curling around the top buckle and her body shakes with something other than fear. She leans forward, closing the small distance between them and pressing her lips against his. The need grows inside of her, fear and anger mixing together as his heart beats faster under her hand.

She doesn't wait for a reaction, for his okay, she opens her mouth and pushes her tongue between his lips, demanding access and refusing denial. When his lips move against hers she feels the cut on her mouth sting, as if salt is being poured on her wound.

Her fingers work quickly on the buckles of his jacket, pulling it open and brushing it over his shoulders until it's on the floor, then she pulls his shirt from his pants and splays her palms against his chest. His muscles twitch under her touch.

"Gretel," he starts, trying to speak as her mouth moves from his lips to his jaw. "I don't want to hurt you."

Her face throbs where she's hurt, swollen left cheek, sensitive dislodged nose, cuts on her forehead and blood where she stopped him from cleaning. She doesn't care. "You almost died." She grabs his shoulders, looks him in the eye, tries to stop the tears again but the mere thought of living a life without him is ludicrous and absurd and makes her want to cry. "I almost died. I want to make sure we're both okay."

She doesn't let him reply, crushes her mouth to his again with more need and urgency and kisses him until she tastes blood. It's enough to make him move. They help each other remove tight clothes and under garments with fingers made of steel and nails as sharp as the crosses they bear and they're soon a tangle of arms and legs on the small bed.

She likes to be on top, to have control and keep her own pace, to look down at him as his eyelids fall closed while he comes and shudders, to pretend this isn't her_ brother_, but the only person she trusts her life with, the only one that understands, the only one that knows what it is to have a void so big that only the other can fill.

This time her back is to the bed, sore muscles and sensitive skin against clean sheets and the weight of his body on top of her pressing her down is welcomed, familiar. The skin to skin contact makes her shiver. He kisses her mouth as he settles between her legs, her heels digging into the back of his tights as his tongue licks the cut on her bottom lip, nips her jaw and her neck as he enters her slowly, as her fingernails dig into his shoulders enough to make sure there will be marks in the morning.

"Harder," she says when he's still burying himself in. Their eyes meet, blue and brown darkened by lust and pain and need under the half light of the rising moon.

"Your hip is bruised."

"I don't care."

He thrusts hard, in and out with the same staccato of a jack hammer and she groans at each apex, sneaking her arms around his neck, bringing a hand to his head and burying her fingers into his hair.

"Harder," she says again, locking her legs around him, meeting each movement, moaning every time she feels him deep inside. He thrusts harder, their hips meeting in a painful clash, the bed dancing under them with every move.

A thin layer of sweat soon forms over their skins, making them glisten in different ways with every push and every pull. She ignores the strain on her muscles and the way they will hurt in the morning because any pain is worth it; knowing he's alive and breathing and here with her is all she needs, anything else be damned. Sometimes she wonders if the worst moments are a punishment forced upon them for their acts, for the meeting of flesh, for the sin of fucking your own blood.

She doesn't care, she reminds herself as she feels the familiar buzzing in her ears, her blood pumping faster, the pinpricks growing on her legs and the spams she can't stop. She digs her nails deeper into his skin, her legs going tight around him as she gasps when stars explode behind her closed eyelids.

He shudders after her, pushing harder one more time until his fingers curl around her hips and he groans into her ear. Hansel moves to lay beside her, pulling her against his chest, and she ignores the pain growing between her legs from their violent sex because it's just one more ache to add to her exhausted body. It's just one more sign she's alive and he's alive and fucking be cursed everything else because nothing in the world matters as much as he does.

Gretel rests her hand on his chest right above his heart and lest the fast beating of it relax her nerves. "Your shoulder," she says, noticing the purple on his skin.

"I fell off a tree. Then you fell on me." He's sheepish and she smiles.

"Do you hate me?" She asks curiously, snuggles closer into him, makes sure she can read his voice and his body when he lies. "Now that we know I'm a witch."

His arms tighten around her and he presses his lips against hers in a reassuring kiss, then meets her eyes and she shivers under his intense stare. She has always loved his blue eyes, deep and clear and soft like a blue sky on a summer morning, so different from hers. "You're the one person I love in this world, Gretel, and nothing is going to change that."

She's forgotten her cut lip, the sting an annoying ache that throbs in the background. Gretel settles back onto the bed, letting his warmth seep into her body and his words echo inside her head.

Maybe their past isn't their ruin; maybe it will only make them stronger, after all.


End file.
